On the night Kim Jong-il’s death was reported, I wrote half-jokingly (or maybe quarter-jokingly) that Jimmy Carter had volunteered to lead a US delegation to the funeral. According to the state-run media in North Korea, Carter has done the next best thing:

Former President Jimmy Carter has sent North Korea a message of condolence over the death of Kim Jong-il and wished “every success” to the man expected to take over as dictator, according to the communist country’s state-run news agency.

A dispatch from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Mr. Carter sent the message to Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il’s son and heir apparent.

“In the message Jimmy Carter extended condolences to Kim Jong Un and the Korean people over the demise of leader Kim Jong Il. He wished Kim Jong Un every success as he assumes his new responsibility of leadership, looking forward to another visit to [North Korea] in the future,” the KCNA dispatch read.

When contacted by The Washington Times for comment, the Carter Center provided an email contact to a spokeswoman who is out of the office until the New Year.

If the report is true it’s possible that Carter is buttering up Kim Jong-un so he doesn’t snub him on his next visit like Un’s father did.

In announcing to the North Korean people the former US president’s letter of condolence, NK state media made a mistake in translation and inadvertently reported that Jimmy had been named Kim Jong-un’s chief economic adviser. The reaction on the streets of Pyongyang was immediate:

(h/t Drudge)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Early in Obama’s presidency, when Hillary Clinton was on her “Apologizing for Anything Bush and America Might Have Done to Offend You ’09″ tour, the Secretary of State gave Russia a “re-set” button. This was in the hope that the secret to achieving world peace and nuclear non-proliferation could be found in the exchange of cheap plastic novelty gifts.

Now it sounds as if Russia wants that red button to do a little more than just re-set the relationship:

A top Kremlin official has told the United States Russia wants “red button” rights to a new US-backed missile defence system for Europe, a move that would allow it to influence the shield’s day-to-day operational use.

Sergey Ivanov, Russia’s deputy prime minister, made the controversial demand during a visit to the United States where he met with top officials including Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State.

“We insist on only one thing,” he said of the nascent US-backed missile defence shield. “That we are an equal part of it.”

“In practical terms, that means that our office will sit for example in Brussels and agree on a red-button push to launch an interceptor missile, regardless of whether the missile is launched from Poland, Russia or the UK.”
[...]
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, tried to pacify the Kremlin last month by offering to share information about the new system and by offering to build a joint data centre.

But Russian government officials have since made it clear that such a compromise does not go far enough.

Revealing the size of America’s nuclear arsenal wasn’t enough, so now they want right of first refusal on Europe’s defense shield? Under normal circumstances I’d expect Washington to laugh off such a request, but these days, not so much.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Far left radio station Pacifica carried the proceedings live–with unhinged commentators and callers griping afterwards that Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and his fellow witch-hunters didn’t stab their pins in far enough.

The two-hour hearing was an absolute travesty. Nadler and the Dems shamelessly badgered and harangued the witnesses; Yoo, polite to a fault, repeatedly attempted to answer questions, only to be cut off by foaming jerks who twisted his words or indignantly claimed he was “conceding” some point that he had just established himself.

One of the most hostile and ignorant questioners was Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA)–who is not even a member of the subcommittee. When subcommittee member Steve King (R-Iowa) politely objected that Nadler had not followed the rules in obtaining unanimous consent for Delahunt’s questioning (King did not object to his presence, just the failure to follow House rules), Nadler obnoxiously acknowledged the point of order, regretting that he had been called out. Later, after King had left the hearing room, Nadler personally attacked King and snarked that he must not have cared about the rules enough to stay. (At the end of the hearing, Nadler withdrew those remarks with all the sincerity of a, well, Democrat politician.)

I almost drove off the road when Delahunt sarcastically told Addington that he was “glad” al Qaeda finally got the chance to watch him on TV. He can spin it all he wants, but the gloat in his voice is unmistakable.

Rep. King rightly called Delahunt on the carpet: “Congressman Delahunt’s live, televised statement to Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff was an invitation to Al-Qaeda to target him. I wonder if Bill Delahunt is ready to guard Mr. Addington’s home and family.”

Delahunt went on to grill Yoo about the torture memos. When Yoo referred to an appendix in the 2003 memo, Delahunt interrupted that he had not read the memo and barreled ahead with his kabuki interrogation.

What else do you need to know about the utter lack of seriousness, character, and good faith of your clown Congress at work?

When we call them 9/10 Democrats, 9/10 is not just a date. It’s the estimate of their mental and emotional ages.

What is implicit in Obama’s reference to “tiny” threats is that they are sufficiently insignificant that negotiations alone can resolve them. Indeed, he has gone even further, arguing that the lack of negotiations with Iran caused the threats: “And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons, funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah.”

This is perhaps the most breathtakingly naive statement of all, implying as it does that it is actually U.S. policy that motivates Iran rather than Iran’s own perceived ambitions and interests. That would be news to the mullahs in Tehran, not to mention the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.

It is an article of faith for Obama, and many others on the left in the U.S. and abroad, that it is the United States that is mostly responsible for the world’s ills.

That’s not even the best part. Bolton pins a great big MONDALE sign on him.

One more line I’m going to pull out, and chisel in stone somewhere visible in DC:

An “asymmetric” threat to the U.S. often is an existential threat to its friends, which was something we never forgot during the Cold War.

Oh, I wouldn’t say never, Stache, unless by “we” you mean “the Reagan administration”:

L to R: Senator Kerry, Senator Harkin, Mrs. Harkin, Communist Anti-American Dictator Danny Ortega’s Moustache, Communist Anti-American Dictator Danny Ortega.

The most visible exception to Bolton’s Law right now is Colombia, which has been in a struggle for its existence against Communist terrorists since 1968, and which San Fran Nan and her Palominocrats are determined to sell down the river. I’ve written about that several times (check baby check two three four) but here’s the Diplomad’s more thorough and better informed account. He just got back from there.

Because that’s one Republican you shouldn’t donate to.* Kanjorski, most recently seen admitting that Dems lied “stretched the facts” about the war, is a gold mine of embarrassing gaffes.

His latest reverse-psychology stumble is here, with more here.
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*I guess I’m mostly kidding, but he sure makes my job easier.

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{Post by See-Dubya.}

Like my ol’ Uncle Pappy always told me, See-Dubya, you keep pumping that there botulinum toxin into your face to maintain its youthful appearance like that, an’ one day your brain’s going to freeze and you’ll be incapable of doing anything but spouting appeasement-monkey pro-jihadist propaganda and denigrating the heroic accomplishments of our troops.

Prescient fellow, my ol’ Uncle Pappy.

P.S.: Good thing Hugo Chavez finally helped Colombia beat the FARC, eh, Nancy?

________

{Post by See-Dubya}

As Jeff Emanuel notes, there’s an extra little dollop of condescension to leaven all that honesty:

“Now anybody was a good student of Government,” said Kanjorski, “would know that wasn’t true [that they "could stop the war"].” Fortunately for those Democrats who campaigned, and were elected, based on their war-ending promises, their hardcore supporters, their activists, and their base of voters, are all made up of people who are, by Mr. Kanjorski’s reckoning, very, very poor students of Government.

But all of that was justified to these incumbents and first-time candidates. Taking advantage of poor, uneducated rubes? Abusing trust, and leaving those who offered it stranded along the way? All acceptable — because, again by Mr. Kanjorski’s own description, of “the temptation to want to win back the Congress.”

As Krusty the Klown once remarked, “Oh crap, I said the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud!”

H/T to Ace.
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{Post by See-Dubya}

Those transcripts were published, and I was surprised to see they held up on their own in black-and-white, even without Fred’s serious-but-warm rack ‘em, stack ‘em, and pack ‘em rumble coming through the speakers. Bloggers linked his commentaries and discussed them, and the Fred Bubble was born. The commentaries stopped, and the bubble began to deflate.

Even Fred’s detractors on the right acknowledged that he really had something in his platform–they just doubted whether he was the one to deliver it. I’m glad we got to know him, but it makes what we’re forced to settle for all the more bitter.

Well, here’s a silver lining within the radioactive cloud of choking, deadly malaise and defeatism gripping the GOP: Townhall has signed up Fred to blog.

Bookmark it.

First entry is a humdinger:

…change – whether it “real change,” “bold change” or the “change we can believe in” variety others are selling – isn’t itself an innovative policy or a particularly strong leadership stance. In fact, from Burke to Buckley, there has been an acknowledgement that change in the political arena is inevitable and necessary, and we in the U.S. tend to experience it in regular, 2, 4 and 6 year intervals, so 2008 is hardly our first rodeo. The challenge for conservatives is calibrating whether the change being proposed is consistent with our principles and our philosophy, and whether that change is appropriate.

The man can work Edmund Burke, William F. Buckley, and a rodeo metaphor into a single post. And it gets better–he’s talking about relating current policy to our fundamental principles, and says that’s what he wants the blog to be all about, and he even gets in a dig at the Tom Davis “endorse S-CHIP!” Republicans who want to turn the party into Democrat Lite (now with 40% less appeasement!)

_____________
Speaking of appeasement: it’s not just Barry O who bristles when you bring that up. Warren Christopher doesn’t like how he’s portrayed in an HBO movie about the 2000 Florida election crisis, either:

He is depicted as backing away from confrontation during a meeting with Mr. Baker, seeking compromise and negotiation as the Republicans prepare for war.

A Democratic Secretary of State, seeking compromise and negotiation in the face of committed adversaries? Pure Hollywood fantasy, of course. Perish the thought.

______

P.S.–Remember how we weren’t supposed to vote for Fred because he was bald, old, and as a U.S. Senator, lacked managerial experience?

Whew. Glad we dodged that bullet.

_____________________

UPDATE: Michelle points out that the reaction to Fred’s return in his comments is not quite as enthusiastic as mine.

Fair enough. But he’s a better advocate and pundit than he was a candidate. I’m glad to hear someone talking about fundamental principles and conservative ideals; shame it’s not the nominee or the party leadership.

{Post by See-Dubya, not Michelle.}

So they’re–heh heh heh–launching a pre-emptive strike:

Faced with the group’s deep pockets, the DCCC has fired off mail and broadcast ads highlighting Mr. Adelson’s gambling interests and ties with China, which they argue is “a country notorious for forced abortions.” Democrats this week filed a third legal challenge to the group with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

“It’s been reported that Freedom’s Watch intends to spend up to $200 million this cycle against congressional Democrats, and that’s money coming from sources that believe very different things than the people in Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere across the country,” Miss Crider said.

Why, that’s awful. Adelson’s entrepreneurship has succeeded in taking money out of China. How terrible.

I think Freedom’s Watch is using its money well; check out this response by Ed Patru, their director of communications:

“‘Vote against candidate X because he has common values with philanthropist Y, who has business interests in China where, by the way, abortion is legal.’ What a dynamite argument,” Mr. Patru said, adding that the House’s top Democrat is also susceptible to guilt by association. “Given Nancy Pelosi’s relationship with Syria’s [President Bashar] Assad, we’re not surprised her campaign arm is going after one of Israel’s most prolific benefactors.”…

“There are numerous degrees of separation between the issues in Mississippi and issues in Chinese provinces. We’re looking forward to getting linked to Kevin Bacon next week,” he said, referring to the parlor game of trying to link movie stars to the ubiquitous actor.

Me, I’m looking forward to playing the let’s-link-candidates-to-America-hating-socialists game. We’ve got a pretty good head start.

P.S. I’m sure the Democrats’ interest groups are going to turn back all of that money from convicted criminal George Soros any day now.

UPDATE: Here’s some good background on Freedom’s watch by Michelle–and NBC’s decision to nix the awful, shocking, partisan, personal, muckraking, dumpster-diving campaign ad you see here:

Sheldon Adelson: converting Chicom cash into pro-U.S. ads like that. How could the Republic survive such bitter, negative mudslinging?

Freedom’s Watch is also helping with the Berkeley recruitment-office counter-protests. Monsters!
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{Post by See-Dubya, cover photo horked from the Taipei Times}

This, of course, is the hinge of Francis Ford Coppola’s movie, “The Godfather.” It is also a startlingly useful metaphor for the strategic problems and global power structure of our time. The don, emblematic of Cold War American power, is struck by forces he did not expect and does not understand, as was America on 9/11. Intriguingly, his heirs embrace very different visions of family strategy that approximate the three schools of thought — liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism — vying for control of U.S. foreign policy today.

His conceit is that Solozzo is Ahmedinejad, and the Corleone brothers represent these strands of thought: Tom Hagen is the institutionalist, working within existing structures like the UN:

….similar to the liberal institutionalism of today’s Democratic Party. The way to handle Sollozzo, Tom judges, is not through force but through negotiation. Tom thinks even a rogue power can be brought to terms, if the family accommodates his needs and accepts him as a normalized player in the Corleones’ rules-based community.

Maybe so. Then he goes on to compare the neoconservatives to trigger-happy Sonny, and Hulsman’s wise-and-sainted realists to the new don, Michael:

The strategy that ultimately saves the Corleone family from the Sollozzo threat and equips it to cope with the new world comes from Michael, the youngest and least experienced of the don’s sons. Unlike Tom or Sonny, Michael has no formulaic fixation on a particular policy instrument; his overriding goal is to protect the family’s interests by any and all means necessary. In today’s foreign policy terminology, Michael is a realist.

Relinquishing the mechanistic, one-trick-pony approaches of his brothers, Michael uses soft and hard power in flexible combinations to influence others. Can the Iran policies advocated by candidates in either party be said to proceed from these assumptions?

Yeah, um, actually Michael Corleone shot Solozzo in the face in a crowded restaurant and ran off to Italy. That’s making allies, all right. That’s restoring the underworld’s respect for the Corleones as a team player. And then there’s the whole account-settling at the end, too…maintaining Corleone hegemony by the underworld equivalent of a worldwide nuclear strike. I doubt even those trigger-happy neocons Hulsman cites are ready for that.

See, I think the point of the Godfather is a very Burkean one. (Machiavellian too, but that’s another post.) The wise old Don, after meeting with the other heads of the families, realizes that the Solozzo business and his apparent new enemy Don Tattaglia were small potatoes, and part of a much larger push to topple his family’s influence. It was, he realizes, Barzini all along.*

Don Corleone and Michael, because they are themselves evil men, understand the truth of Edmund Burke’s admonition:

There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.**

But here’s the big question: Where’s Corleone brother Fredo in this analogy? Fumbling his gun and crying impotently over the wounded Don in the first Godfather movie, living a dissipated life with Moe Greene in Vegas, and by Godfather II he’s taken up with Hyman Roth’s side against the Family and he’s hitting the sex shows in Havana with Johnny Ola. And constantly whining that he’s smaaaaaaht, he can run things! Sure, let Fredo take care of some mickey-mouse nightclub somewhere. He wants respect!

The analogy makes more sense if you look at it this way:

The “Realist” Republicans like James Baker and institutionalist Democrats like Lee Hamilton, who were behind the “let’s negotiate with Iran” Iraq Study Group report? Those guys are Tom Hagen.

The Obama/Pelosi/Jim Moran/Cynthia McKinney/Bob McDermott Democrats? Fredo.

You broke my heart!

* I’m not sure there’s a real-world analogue to Barzini out there; Russia and China certainly are itching to take us down a peg and they’re certainly not our allies, but I’m not convinced they’re driving events the way Barzini was.
**A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791. You never hear the second half of that quote; it’s always just the “believing” evil part. No, Burke says your safety depends on your actually doing something about it.

_____________________
MORE: If this is realism, sign me up. Here’s “realist” Michael Corleone, explaining his philosophy to Tom Hagen in Godfather II:

I don’t feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies.

Meanwhile, Ed has the latest Fredocrat bleat from Obama on video: Truman negotiated with Tojo, just like I’ll negotiate with Iran.

Yeah, Truman negotiated with his enemies; his emissaries were Fat Man and Little Boy.

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{Post by See-Dubya; H/T to Hot Air Headlines.}

Debate continues on the Senate floor…cloture vote is schedule for Monday… hours before Bush’s State of the Union address.

More:

An earlier FISA vote in the Senate today netted 60 votes, and if that coalition of Republicans plus conservative Democrats holds firm, then McConnell will get cloture. However, rank-and-file senators from both parties often support their leaders on cloture votes, so Reid may be able to keep Democrats in line, thus blocking cloture.

It is also unclear at this time if the “presidentials” — that is, senators running for the White House — will attend Monday’s vote.

***

When I’m down on the Republicans, I tell you. When they deserve your support, I tell you. In the Senate this morning, the Republicans are showing that there are still fundamental differences between the GOP and the Dems. You can tune in right now to C-SPAN 2 to watch the battle over permanent reform and overhaul of the nations’ outdated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. There are nine days until the current stopgap measure expires.

The frenzy over FISA is a stark reminder of basic party differences on the War on Terror. The Republicans put security first. The Democrats put trial lawyers, terrorists’ rights, and election campaigns first. The Republicans are acting to prevent another 9/11. The Democrats are stuck in a 9/10 world. Treacherous Dick Durbin is currently on the floor right now using the FISA debate to foam at the mouth about Guantanamo Bay again and yes, he’s quoting that idiotic, Soros-backed Center for Public Integrity “study” to pollute the Senate chambers with more “BUSH LIED PEOPLE DIED” propaganda as Denny K did in the House yesterday.

Democrat Chris Dodd is threatening a filibuster. And the jihadists are cheering.

As Andy McCarthy explains:

Dodd’s objection is about as counterproductive as it gets to national security. He is unhappy because a far from perfect but comparatively sensible FISA-reform proposal that won overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate Intelligence Committee would provide telecommunications service providers with immunity from legal liability.

The telecoms, in the wake of the 9/11 atrocity, acceded to the Bush administration’s requests for assistance in carrying out the NSA’s warrantless monitoring of wartime terrorist communications that crossed U.S. borders. This effort, relying on presidential authority consistently acknowledged by the federal appeals courts, did not comply with FISA protocols.

Granting the telecoms immunity, which is not merely the only fair thing to do but the only smart thing to do, would end numerous lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and others.

…Dodd and his colleagues in the Democratic party are desperate to keep the courts front and center. Feeling the heat from their hard-Left base, they would have al-Qaeda operatives given protection against surveillance not only inside the United States but overseas — such that if, for example, jihadists inside Iraq were plotting to kill American marines there, the government would have to seek a judge’s permission before eavesdropping on their communications.

This is so patently absurd and dangerous that even the energetic Leftist Congress which enacted FISA in 1978 did not attempt it, taking pains to exempt intelligence collection outside the United States from the new (and ill-advised) requirement that the president — the constitutional official principally responsible for national security — obtain court permission before monitoring spies and terrorists. The Democrats would obviously prefer to depict such foolishness as the doing of judges rather than a policy choice bearing their own fingerprints.

Thus the Dodd gambit: Just say “no” to telecom immunity while pushing for an 18-month extension of the temporary deal Congress and the administration struck this summer, which permits the CIA and NSA to continue overseas surveillance without court permission.

Currently, that deal is scheduled to sunset in early February. The Democrats’ strategy is transparent. They realize their position underscores how weak they are on national security and how beholden they are to the CAIR/ACLU/MoveOn.org Left, which is more animated by the “rights” of terrorists than the lives of Americans. If they can con the Bush administration into accepting the 18-month extension, that takes the issue off the table for the 2008 election. Not only would Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama be able to avoid being accountable for their party’s unpopular position. The ducking would further help one of them win the presidency, whereupon she or he could help Democrats sculpt a more terrorist-friendly FISA in 2009, when no one is up for re-election and public scrutiny ebbs.

The Bush administration and the Republican presidential candidates should not let them get away with it. FISA needs a major overhaul to make it easier, not harder, to monitor the people trying to kill us. Osama bin Laden doesn’t need to apply to a sharia court before blowing up an American embassy; the president shouldn’t need to apply to a federal court to try to stop him…

The nutroots are cheering on the Dems’ obstructionist effort to block a lasting FISA makeover. Where are you?

Make your voice heard.

Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121

***

Here are the proposals on the table. Some not-insane Dems are on board with the Senate intelligence panel’s version that contains retroactive legal immunity for the telecoms.

Here’s a left-wing site’s lambasting of amendments being offered by Feinstein and Specter.

The White House statement on FISA released this morning:

Last August, Congress passed the Protect America Act, which updated our foreign intelligence surveillance law to adapt to today’s technology and to meet today’s threats. This bipartisan legislation has aided our efforts to monitor the communications of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets.

Unfortunately, Congress set this legislation to expire on February 1st. That is just 8 days from today – yet the threat from al Qaeda will not expire in 8 days.

If Congress does not act quickly, our national security professionals will not be able to count on critical tools they need to protect our Nation, and our ability to respond quickly to new threats and circumstances will be weakened. That means it will become harder to figure out what our enemies are doing to recruit terrorists and infiltrate them into our country.

Last fall, the Senate Intelligence Committee completed its work on a bipartisan bill to modernize our foreign intelligence surveillance law. I commend Senators Rockefeller and Bond, the Committee’s Chairman and Vice Chairman, for leading the effort to complete work on this bill.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s bill contains many provisions that our intelligence officials say they need to protect our country. The bill would maintain the vital flow of intelligence on terrorist threats. It would protect the freedoms of Americans while making sure we do not extend those same protections to terrorists overseas. And it would provide liability protection to companies now facing billion dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in efforts to defend our Nation following the Nine-Eleven attacks.

This bill still needs some changes, but I am optimistic that with goodwill on both sides we can make those changes quickly. So I ask Congressional leaders to follow the course set by their colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee, bring this legislation to a prompt vote in both houses, and send me a bill that I can sign before the Protect America Act expires on February 1st.

Congress’ action – or lack of action – on this important issue will directly affect our ability to keep Americans safe.

The US Senate is holding special one man sessions throughout Christmas and the New Year to prevent President George W. Bush from making appointments without the approval of the Democratic majority.
With the bang of a gavel, Democratic Senator Jim Webb declared the first session open on Sunday morning before closing it seconds later, without any of his colleagues present in the hall.

The brief ceremony will be repeated every two to three days until January 18, when lawmakers resume their work after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
The Democratic majority is staging the move to avoid any formal recess for Congress extending over several days. A recess would allow Bush to appoint ambassadors, judges and other top posts without seeking a Senate confirmation for his nominations.

The Senate on Tuesday night passed a spending bill combining funding for 14 Cabinet departments with $70 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By a bipartisan 76-17 vote, senators approved the massive bill, which bundles 11 annual appropriations bills funding domestic agencies and the foreign aid budget for the budget year that began Oct. 1. Earlier, by a 70-25 vote in the Senate, President Bush and his GOP allies won a major victory in passing a measure providing $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — without restrictions that Democrats had insisted on for weeks.

The twin votes sealed a budget deal between Bush and Democrats, ending months of battling over the budget.

But the result on domestic spending created a divide between Republicans who thought it was a good deal, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and those who said it was too expensive and larded with pork-barrel spending…Conservatives estimated the measure contained at least $28 billion in domestic spending above Bush’s budget, funded by a combination of “emergency” spending, transfers from the defense budget, budget gimmicks and phantom savings.

Bush was ready to sign the bill, assuming the war funding cleared the House on Wednesday.

Update: Here’s the 70-25 roll call vote:

The bad news, of course, is that this money is attached to the behemoth soending bill that guts the border fence and undermines homeland security.

***

Reprinted by permission of Chip Bok and Creators Syndicate

Hoist up the White Flag. The Democrats surrender again:

The Senate voted Tuesday to provide $70 billion for U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, handing a victory to President Bush and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill.

The 70-25 roll call paved the way for the Senate to pass a $555 billion omnibus appropriations bill combining the war funding with the budgets for 14 Cabinet agencies.

Bush was ready to sign the bill, assuming the war funding clears the House on Wednesday. Democrats again failed to win votes to force removal of U.S. troops or set a nonbinding target to remove most troops by the end of next year.

“Even those of us who have disagreed on this war have always agreed on one thing: Troops in the field will not be left without the resources they need,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The roll call vote isn’t up yet. It’ll be posted here. But the votes on two failed timetable resolution are up. Take a look. First up: Levin Amdt. No. 3876; “To express the sense of Congress on the transition of the missions of United States Forces in Iraq to a more limited set of missions as specified by the President on September 13, 2007.”

Next: Feingold Amdt. No. 3875; “To provide for the safe redeployment of United States troops from Iraq.”

The Democratic-led Congress authorized more Iraq war spending on Friday, sending President George W. Bush a defense bill requiring no change in strategy after failing again to impose a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals.

The defense policy bill, approved 90-3 by the U.S. Senate, also expanded the size of the U.S. Army and set conditions on the Bush administration’s plan to build a missile defense system in Europe.

The measure already had passed the House of Representatives and now goes to Bush, who is expected to sign it into law. It authorizes Pentagon programs expected to cost $506.9 billion during fiscal 2008, which began in October.

Next stop…appropriations:

The bill authorized another $189.4 billion for the Iraq and Afghan wars, for which Congress has already approved some $600 billion. But it does not deliver the new money. That is done by appropriations legislation at the center of a big dispute on Capitol Hill.

Reax:

“I was pleased to see … no policy changes to the Petraeus plan,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, referring to U.S. Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus whose plan for a temporary boost in U.S. troops in Iraq has been credited with reducing violence.

“The effort (to change course in Iraq) is not over,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said after the vote. But he did not know what the next step in that struggle would be.

Here’s the roll call vote:

Pelosi Comes Unhinged, Spews Pete Stark-like Vitriol: Republicans “Like this War”

Washington– With plummeting approval ratings and no legislative accomplishments to point to, Nancy Pelosi is melting down in the final days of the first session of the 110th Congress. Military success on the ground in Iraq also seems to be agitating the San Francisco Speaker who appears to be despondent over the fact that General Petraeus’ surge is working.

In a press conference today, Pelosi’s frustration manifested itself:

“The grassroots are justifiably disappointed, and I am too, that we could not do something to end this war. The assumption that I made, that the Republicans would soon see the light and listen to their constituents, was not an accurate one.”

“They like this war. They want this war to continue…” (Press Conference, 12/13/07)

Pelosi’s desperation continues to grow as the clock appears to be running out on the Democrats. Their failure to address the nation’s problems like rising prices, the seemingly inevitable return of the alternative minimum tax, and their gross abdication of their responsibility to our troops in the field have left the Americans restless and angry at their incompetence.

Will Nancy Pelosi apologize before the House for her Pete Stark-like remarks? The American people and America’s men and women in uniform are waiting.

More from The Hill:

On Iraq in particular, Pelosi acknowledged at her Thursday news conference she’d misjudged the resolve of Republicans.

“They like this war,” she said. “They want this war to continue. That was a revelation to me. I had thought they would listen to their constituents and change their position.”

Pelosi later qualified her remark that Republicans “like” the war to say they like Bush’s strategy.